An “axe murder” that was captured on Google Street View has been solved by police.

The images which were spotted on Street View appeared to show a young man with an axe in hand, standing over his lifeless victim on a cobblestone street in Edinburgh, Scotland. The killer then leaves the scene of the supposed crime.

Police were asked to investigate the photos after a complaint had been made by a Google user, leading to several reports about the “murder” online. The police soon discovered the murder had in fact been a hoax staged by two mechanics: garage boss and “murder victim” Dan Thompson, 56, who owns Thomson Motor Co in Giles Street, Edinburgh, and his colleague Gary Kerr, a 31-year-old mechanic, who stood over the prone Thompson with a pickaxe handle.

These two men had decided to pull the prank after spotting the Google Street View camera car approaching their place of work, as Thompson told the Edinburgh Evening News:

“By complete fluke I saw the Google car coming along the road but it had to loop the block so I had one minute to rush back inside the garage and set up the murder scene. There are pictures of men on Google flashing their bums but we thought we would be more classy.

“It seemed like the obvious thing to do so I threw myself on the ground and Gary grabbed a pick-axe handle from the garage.”

The pair staged the “killing” in August 2012, and had forgotten about it until the images went live in late 2013. This was when a colleague mentioned he had seen the prank on Street View. However, their colleague wasn’t the only one who spotted the “killing,” as police eventually turned up at Thomson’s garage.

Two uniformed officers came down to the garage to interview us. They were treating it seriously at first - I was mortified because we didn’t want to waste police time.

“We explained to the police what we had done and they thought it was hilarious.”

Kerr also told the Edinburgh Evening News that they may have plans to repeat their hoax:

“I think Google do it every four years so we’ll have to think of something even better for next time.”

I suppose the only concern is how long it took the police to respond to a possible axe murder?